Peter Sagan wins Tour de Suisse stage three

Peter Sagan takes sprint after a hilly day in Switzerland, Tony Martin keeps race lead

Peter Sagan wins stage three of the 2014 Tour de Suisse Credit: watson

Peter Sagan (Cannondale) won the third stage of the Tour de Suisse, winning the sprint from a severely reduced peloton at the end of a hilly day on Monday.

Michael Albasini (Orica-GreenEdge) came in for second, with Sergio Henao (Sky) placing third. Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) finished in a group five seconds behind Sagan to maintain his overall lead.

Early on, Martin Kohler (BMC) and Steven Kruijswijk (Belkin) had formed an escape and pushed out their advantage to just under five minutes, but were caught after 105km. Soon after, Danilo Wyss (BMC Racing), Laurent Didier (Trek Factory Racing), Nino Schurter (Orica-GreenEdge) and Bjorn Thurau (Europcar) struck out.

Thurau sat up with around 45km to go, leaving three up front. Omega Pharma-QuickStep drove at the front of the peloton, keen to keep the gap to a minimum mindful of leader Martin’s slim overall lead.

Valerio Agnoli (Astana) and Tosh Van Der Sande (Lotto-Belisol) bridged up to the break to breath new life into the move, but never really extended the break’s lead as Garmin-Sharp, Giant-Shimano and FDJ also joined in driving the pursuit.

Just as the catch looked likely, Van Der Sande launched a solo move out the front of the break. Agnoli chased, but the Astana rider slid out on a corner, his day in the escape ending in the long grass but without serious injury. Left out on his own, Van Der Sande couldn’t keep the peloton at bay and was swallowed up with seven kilometres to go to set up a bunch finish.

Peter Kennaugh (Sky) put in a dig with two kilometres to go as the road undulated toward the finish, but was swiftly caught. By this point, the pace and hills had seen the peloton reduced to only round 30 riders – Bradley Wiggins (Sky) not among their number.

Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) took the helm on the twisting run-in to the line, but couldn’t hang on as Albasini, Henao, Mollema and Sagan moved around him in the finale.

Wiggins finished two minutes and 25 seconds down on Sagan, and did not look like a rider contesting the overall classification.

Frank Schleck (Trek Factory Racing) was a non-starter in Sarnen, still suffering the after-effects of concussion sustained as a result of a crash the previous day.